Summer Rain
by YL
Summary: [Isshin & Ichigo][Ichigo centric] A man and a boy... stuggling to forget, to preserve, to erase, to enshrine the memories of the one they loved. And choosing to suffer alone, till they finally found their salvation from each other.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **Bleach does not belong to me. But this does.

Please read and Enjoy!

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**Summer Rain - Chapter 1**

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"_Mommy, this time, I'll be the one protecting you!" He said determinedly as his smiling mother wiped the rainwater away from his face. _

_He was nine going on ten, and he had already decided with great certainty that if that was only one person in the world he could protect, that person would be his mother. That was a resolution he had made a long time ago, when he had first learnt the meaning behind his strange name._

_But on that rainy, summer evening, she had died._

_She had died because he had not been able to protect her. He had murdered his beautiful mother with his very own hands._

_People thought he might forget what had happened. He was so young after all, but he was nine going on ten. He was not young enough._

_And it was not something one could forget._

_People also thought he might not understand what had happened. He was so young after all, just nine going on ten. But already, he had seen more than death itself._

_So he understood everything. _

_Kneeling rigidly at the wake, trying his best not to tremble or cry, he could not find the courage to turn and look at Yuzu's blotched and swollen face. And neither could he find the strength to get up and comfort Karin who was curled up in a corner, sobbing quietly with her face pressed against her knees._

_He could not do anything. He could not protect his sisters from the pain._

_Because he was the one who brought it all to them._

"_Daddy, why is Mommy not waking up? Why is she lying there? Why are all these people here? What are they doing, Daddy? Why is Mommy sleeping over there?" Yuzu was making a scene, screaming and hiccupping as she tugged angrily at Dad's sleeves. Her voice had already gone hoarse from her tantrum but she would not, or perhaps, could not stop._

_His father's face remained stoic as he cradled Yuzu into his arms, like he was carrying a young toddler, calming her down as he stroked her hair and gently rocked her back and forth. "Mommy's not waking up, Honey. And because she is not waking up, the people who loved her is here to see her one last time."_

"_Why is Mommy not waking up! I want Mommy to wake up! Daddy, make Mommy wake up! Make Mommy wake up!"_

_Ichigo knew that his Dad's lips were quivering as he held Yuzu a little closer to his chest and buried his lips into her soft brown hair. And he knew that he was avoiding the sympathetic glances of the visitors, as they watched him try to comfort a child that could not be comforted, because she was much too young to understand the sudden loss. _

"_Yuzu dear, Mommy's not going to wake up. She has gone somewhere far, far away, and she's not coming back. But we'll be okay. You hear that, Honey? We'll be okay. We'll be fine. We'll definitely be fine. We'll be fine."_

_Ichigo guiltily shifted his eyes away from his Dad's face and fixated them onto the ground instead. He could still hear his father murmuring "we'll be fine" over and over again. He had been too distraught to notice in the beginning, but it seemed that a part of his father had died along with his mother on that day. _

_He wondered why his Dad did not just tell Yuzu that he, Kurosaki Ichigo, was the one who killed her. That he was the one who failed to protect her. That he was the one to be blamed._

_It would have been easier if someone railed at him, reproached him or hit him. Anything was better than his father's silent grieving or the meaningless commiserating gestures that came from all these strangers._

_His father reached out to hold his hand that had begun to shake, but he shrunk away, shrinking away like he thought he would be scalded by the warmth of his touch. He felt suffocated, like his father's pleading eyes and outstretched arm had sucked the oxygen right out from the room. He wanted to push him away. To escape from this overcrowded house and drift away. To jump into that river and be carried away into the open sea where no one would ever find him. Because he could not bear to be touched by his father, or to be touched by anyone else around him. He did not want anyone to hold his hands and comfort him. _

_Because no one should be dirtied by touching the hands of a murderer. _

_**- - -**_

Funny that he should be recalling such memories at such a time, when he was lying in his own widening pool of blood, hearing the patter of rain against the asphalt and pending death on this cold summer's night. Those were memories, so deeply etched in his head that he could not forget them even if he wanted to. Memories of his regret, his shame, his sin.

But perhaps it was apt for such memories to come at such moments of hopelessness.

His lungs were gurgling with blood and it was getting really difficult to breathe. He wanted to turn around and lie on his back instead, thinking that it would make breathing much easier if he did that, but he could not even feel his limbs anymore, much less find the strength to push himself up and change his position. All that were left was the dull throb of the wounds in his chest, the chill of the falling rain against his skin and the warmth of his blood slipping away into a puddle beneath him. He closed his heavy lids, quietly awaiting the passing of time to finally take him away.

It was obvious. The fight in him had vanished, because he knew that he deserved this. He deserved to just die like this, in this state of utter disgrace. Perhaps, though unsaid, he _wanted_ to die like this.

He could not protect his mother.

He could not protect his sisters.

He could not protect _her._

"_Mommy, this time, I'll be the one protecting you!"_

It was a mockery.

Because six years later, he was fifteen going on sixteen, but absolutely nothing had changed.

In the end, he still could not protect anyone at all.

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**- YL -**

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	2. Chapter 2

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Summer Rain - Chapter 2

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At nine, how many children can comprehend death?

Strangely, he did.

He could vaguely see her lovely auburn hair, undone and spread out messily across his chest. She was in an awkward position, lying on him, her head tucked between the crook of his neck and her arms hanging around his upper body.

"Mommy?"

Instinctively, he knew something was wrong. He could feel the dark puddle of sticky fluid against his palm as he pushed himself up to a sitting position. His mother's hands slid limply off his body and hit the ground with a dull thud. He reached out to touch his mother's hand, which still felt warm, but somehow, he knew that she was no longer alive. It was more than the stillness of her body, more than the absence of breath, more than the quietness of her heart. It was just a sick, nauseating feeling at the pit of his stomach that told him. And not knowing what to do, he just sat there and stared, for a long time.

He did not know how much time had passed, it could have been seconds, minutes or even hours, he did not know. But there was a point during that night when a shadow was cast upon his mother's motionless form, and he had turned around. Though the person's face was darkened by his own shadow, Ichigo knew that the person standing there, drenched from the pouring rain, was his father.

He kneeled down beside Ichigo and held him against his chest, wrapping his coat around him. His father had gently urged Ichigo to release his mother's hand, which had already gone cold. Unknowingly, his own small hands had also gone cold. He did not want to let go. He did not want to leave his mother's side. He did not know if he was shaking from the cold, the shock or the anguish – perhaps it had been all - but he was shaking so hard that he could not find the strength to retaliate against his father.

Everything that happened after that was nothing but a muddled memory of flashing lights and strangers in uniforms. They talked to him, but he could not remember what they said. They whispered around him but he could only hear the noise. They offered him blankets but he forgot if he accepted it.

He only remembered walking through the crowd to where his mother lay, and watching in horror as the medical team bagged his mother and strapped her onto a stretcher to carry her into the truck. He wanted to scream then, to tell them that she would die in there, to stop them from bringing her away. But instead of doing that, he just fell onto the ground and threw up.

He also remembered his father arriving to his side and carrying him away from the scene, away from the dizzying lights and away from those muttering strangers. At the side of the road, far away from the noise, he bent over and held Ichigo tightly, and with a slight tremble in his voice, he whispered, "We'll be fine." Ichigo looked up, and in response, his father had smiled uncertainly for some reason, and his eyes had appeared moist, but it was so dark that Ichigo could not be sure. It was a look that Ichigo would see again, but when that time came, he would still be unsure of what he had seen.

He did not realize then, but he stopped talking right after that. It was like he had suddenly lost his ability to talk, to cry, to smile, to react. He would watch his sisters cry, he would see his father sit in silence, he would see those people who knew his mother weep for her death, but he would not respond in any way.

He had overheard the doctors in the hospital suggesting that he should be brought to see a child psychologist, but his father had not taken their advice. Perhaps there was no father who would be willing to believe that there was something wrong with his own child. That there was something so wrong with his own son that he, himself, was unable to solve. Or perhaps his father, just like him, was trying to avoid the problem, to pretend that nothing was wrong and that everything was going to turn out fine.

So for weeks, Ichigo would remain in his disconnected world, standing in a strange place that he suddenly could not recognise, losing grip of what was real. He would become an empty shell of the person he had been before this incident. But throughout those weeks, he was acutely aware of one thing: his mother was dead. And that he wanted to go to where she was.

He wanted to die.

But he would live. And he would talk again. And he would cry.

But the smile would never come back; at least, never back to the way it was before.

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- YL -

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**Note: **One of my greatest fear, is losing my mother. So this is like a writing propelled by fear.

I'll never want to be Ichigo.


	3. Chapter 3

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Summer Rain: Chapter 03

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_To and fro, back and forth, to and fro, back and forth. He did not know how to stop, so along that river bank, he just kept walking._

_He wanted to believe that if he looked for her long enough, she would come back. That if he tried hard enough, that awful thing that had happened would be rescinded into a past that had never been. That if he waited long enough, she would come and take his hand with that big, familiar smile on her face, and tell him that he had been a good boy._

_Exhausted, he sat down on the grass, his knees drawn up against his chest. Quite suddenly, he was terrified, because he realized that he could no longer remember what his mother's voice was like. He could no longer remember what it was like to hear his wonderful mother calling his name with that distinctly joyous tone that he loved so dearly. The memories were all slipping away so fast._

_Unconsciously, he had begun to claw at the grass patch beside him. He pulled out the roots of the plant and kept digging deeper and deeper and deeper into the dry ground till the skin at the tip of his fingers began to tear. He had not realized his wound till he stopped and pressed his palm against the ground in preparation to get up. He then crawled over to the river and dipped his injured hand into the water, wincing silently as the grass, soil and blood got washed away. He saw that his face had somehow gotten dirty as well, and he cleaned himself up, knowing that his father and sisters would not be happy if they saw him returning home filthy._

_Noticing that the sun was setting, he knew he had to head back home soon. He looked up and he could see Tatsuki standing on the other side of the river bank, watching him with a strange look on her face. He stood up and dried his hands against his pants. He had seen her stop several times for the past two weeks, but all she ever did was watch him. Perhaps she was wondering when he would return to school and his karate classes, as he had been missing them ever since his mother passed away. But he could not find the will to go. He was not prepared to endure the looks and whispers that would go on behind him when they thought he was not listening. Or the condolences that they would extend to him, pretending that they understood how he felt, when in actual fact, they did not. They could not understand. How could they understand?_

_So he did not care for any of that phoniness._

_Right now, it was more important for him to find his mother._

_What if he missed his mother while he was in school? What if his mother was stuck somewhere and waiting for him to help her?_

_He could not take such risks since he was probably the only one who would be able to see her. Shifting his focus away from Tatsuki, he picked up his schoolbag and left the riverbank, knowing that he would be coming back tomorrow. And the day after tomorrow. And the day after the day after tomorrow… _

_He was not going to stop. Not till he found her. _

_Not till he found her._

_**- - -**_

_It was raining today. Still, Ichigo relentlessly tried to search every nook and cranny of the river bank, walking its full length till there was nowhere for him to go, then walking back to where he started. The water had already gotten into his poncho, his shoes were thoroughly soaked and he was trembling violently from the cold, but he continued on with his search. He slipped and scrapped his knee, for the soil was slippery with the rain, but imperturbably, he got up and carried on with his search._

_"ICHIGO!"_

_He looked up. Tatsuki had decided to stop today. "It's raining, Ichigo! Go home!"_

_He stared back at her blankly, not bothering to formulate any form of response. Nearly like he had not seen her, he then simply turned away and continued searching. He did cast a brief glance at her as she walked away, and she had this expression that looked almost painful. The look irritated him slightly, because it felt like Tatsuki pitied him, but he brushed that emotion away as soon as it came, because he knew that he had to find his mother._

_Today was so similar to the day she died. To his young mind, it appeared extremely rational that since the two days were alike, therefore this would be the day he would find her. So he kept searching. Even when the sun had set and he could barely see clearly, illumination of the street lamps greatly dimmed by the torrent, he just kept on searching._

_He was muddied, tired and hungry, but he refused to stop. He was unwilling to waver from his staunch belief that today would be the day when he would find his mother._

_Then he heard footsteps behind him. He turned around excitedly, logic of all things possible seemingly to have vanished in that brief moment of blind hope._

_And his heart fell. It was his father._

_"Let's go home."_

_Ichigo's eyes widened as a strange sort of anger rose up to his throat. He glared back defiantly._

_His father frowned in response, looking slightly frustrated. "Ichigo, let's go home."_

_He wanted to take his son's hand, but instinctively, Ichigo slapped the outstretched hand away and took a step back. And he abruptly kneeled onto the ground, his body locked in a fetal position, with his arms tucked determinedly between his thighs._

_"Ichigo."_

_Ichigo refused to either respond or budge. His body simply curled even more tightly._

_"Kurosaki Ichigo." His father's voice came out harsh and unfeeling, barking his full name like he was commanding a soldier. Ichigo could not remember ever hearing his father sound so angry before._

_A hand grabbed his upper arm with bruising strength, fiercely pulling at it in an attempt to break him out of his position. And then, quite suddenly, Ichigo started to scream. It was like an unannounced explosion of that anger that he had tried to suppress, and he could not even understand why, but he simply kept screaming and screaming and screaming. He could not stop screaming even when his father released him. He just kept on screaming. He did not know how to stop. It was like something in him had snapped and he could not stop himself from screaming. He could not curb the emotions that were bursting out of him, threatening to swallow him up in its depths._

_"Ichigo!" This time, his father's tone was hushed and intense; he was whispering the name of his son._

_But still, Ichigo could not stop screaming. He wanted to scream till he died. He wanted to scream till someone would drown him in that river that was overflowing onto the river bank. He wanted to scream till he could undo everything that was done, till he could right the wrongs that he had committed, till he could wake up from this nightmare that did not seem to end._

_And then he was pulled into his father's arm, his head pressed so hard against his chest that he could hear his father's heartbeat inside his head. And then his screams were replaced by choked whimpers, like the whine of an abused puppy begging for forgiveness. He gasped desperately for air through his constricted throat and he could not repress the uncontrollable shaking that had taken over his body. But he could hear the steady heartbeat that belonged to his father. A soothing rhythm that was loud, clear and steady against his ear. A rhythm that was alive. It was a tranquilizer to his insuppressible madness._

_Then Ichigo brought his arms up, scrambling frantically for grip onto his father's wet shirt, pulling himself into a tighter embrace. He had not realized how he had grown to so desperately crave this scorching warmth against his own body. And he had not realized how emotionally starved he had become since the day his mother had passed away. He had not realized at all._

_And he began to cry, for the first time since his mother's death. He began to moan and wail and scream, the flood of emotions that he had kept all locked up all gushing out in one enormous tirade. "I KILLED MOMMY! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED MOMMY! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER! I KILLED HER!"_

_The grief was destroying him from the inside. And to think that he had actually believed his grief had been emptied out when he had finally seen his mother's ashes being buried under the soil. But he would come to understand that grief came in waves. It would swallow him up and then recede, and then when he was not looking, he would be overcome by it all over again. The grief had broken him in ways a nine-year-old should never have been allowed to know, and it would continue breaking him for all the years that he would live. And he would learn that grief would never disappear. And he would also learn, in many years to come, that he would be able to convince himself that he was never responsible for her death, that there was nothing that he could have done, but he would still never be able to forgive himself._

_So he kept screaming those words of guilt, screaming till his lungs felt like they had collapsed on itself, screaming though he knew that it would not make him feel any less guilty. His father's arms hugged him tighter. He just held him quietly in his embrace, allowing Ichigo to slowly fall silent with the soporific rise and fall of his father's chest._

_"Daddy…"_

_"It's okay, Son. It's not your fault. It's not anyone's fault. So you don't have to search anymore. You don't have to search anymore."_

_No words came, and a long time passed._

_Then his father finally let go of him, and he brought Ichigo onto his feet while he remained on his knees so that he was nearly the same height as the boy. His father reached out and took his hands, squeezing them firmly in his. His father's grasp was so different from his mother's. Hers had always been gentle, while his was strong. But they were both warm. And both made him feel safe. These hands were like making a promise to protect him and these hands would never let go even if the world come crashing down on them._

_"Daddy…" His voice cracked._

_"This was never anyone's fault, Ichigo. Not you, not mine, not anyone's. So why don't we go home now? Your baby sisters are both wondering why their big brother's not home yet. They miss having a big brother around."_

_"I couldn't protect…"_

_"It's all right," he cut him off gently. He smiled uncertainly for some reason, and his eyes appeared moist, but it was so dark that Ichigo could not be sure. He had seen that look before, on the day of his mother's death, but he had forgotten. But there will be a time, when he is much older, that he will recall that look in his father's eyes, and finally understand the meaning behind it._

_His father brushed through his wet orange hair and rested his large palm against the nape of his neck. "Son, you can't protect everyone. There's only so much that one person can do. None of this is your fault. None of it. So you can stop looking now. You can stop looking for her now. We'll be fine. You understand that?"_

_Ichigo stared back at his father's face vacantly, his vision blurred by the tears that would not stop coming._

_"Come on, Ichigo. Tell me that you understand what I'm saying. We'll be fine. Understand?"_

_Ichigo had heard his father's "we'll be fine" innumerable times since his mother's death, but this was the first time he really believed him. He finally nodded affirmatively as he brushed away the tears from his swollen eyes with the back of his hand._

_His father rustled his hair and kissed his forehead before he lugged him up and secured him against his waist. The last time Ichigo had been carried this way was probably when he was four or five, just before his sisters were born. And being held like that again - it felt nice. His father picked up his schoolbag, and discarding the umbrella that he had brought along with him, he began to walk home. "Son, one day, when you are big and strong, you're going to find someone else that you would want to protect with your life. But before that time comes, I'll be the one protecting you. Not just you, but Karin and Yuzu as well. I'll protect all of you. How's that?"_

_Ichigo tightened his arms around his father's neck. As he pressed his cheek harder against his father's warmth, he was certain, without a shadow of a doubt in his mind, that he would always be safe in his father's arms._

_**- - -**_

His eyes fluttered open and the first thing that registered in his head was that every single inch of his body was aching like hell. Staring at the artificial azure sky above him, he briefly wondered how long he had been asleep. He still felt so damn tired.

"Ah, Kurosaki-san, you seem to have woken up? Shall we carry on with our training then?"

Ichigo firmly grasped the hilt of his sword that lay beside him, catching some loose gravel between his fingers in the process. He stood up, and seemingly right on cue, his stomach growled. Quite audibly. The blond shinigami's chuckle was hidden behind his fan, but the amusement in his pale eyes was not lost on him.

Ichigo responded with a sheepish grin. "After lunch."

_I've found that someone, Dad. And this time, I WILL protect her. With my life._

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- YL -

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**Note:**

Death leaves a heartache that no one can heal. So love the ones that you should love, even if you hate them, because you don't want to look back, thinking that there must have been something else that you could have done.


	4. Chapter 4

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**Summer Rain: Chapter 04**

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For a nine-year-old, Ichigo knew a lot of things. He knew that there was no rabbit living on the moon, that just because he could not see the stars in the day it did not mean that they were not there, that there was no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He knew how it was like to wake up in the morning wishing to never wake up at all, spending all his waking moments rewinding the tape of his life over and over again, watching the parts that he wanted and never wanting to be in the present. And he had seen enough and learnt enough for him to know that no one person's death could make the world stop spinning.

He also knew that when one parent dies, the other tries to overcompensate.

His father started building his life around his family, arranging his life like iron fillings around a magnet. He opened his clinic only after the children have gone to school and closed it early to bring the girls back from kindergarten. He made house calls because it allowed flexibility to his work schedule. He closed his clinic during the weekend so that he could spend all his time helping out with their homework, bringing them out for shopping, for picnics or for so many other activities that he seemed to have kept secretly lined up.

During the mornings, no matter which day of the week it was, his father's voice could be heard booming throughout the house, yelling 'Good Morning' and other strings of nonsense that Ichigo seldom took the effort to decipher. He would be bustling through the kitchen, energetically preparing breakfast while allowing Yuzu to set the table. Unlike many families, the house would not be filled with noises coming from the television during meal times. Instead, it would be filled with his father's rowdy voice and non-stop conversations about school and friends and everything under the sun that anyone could think of.

In the dining room, what used to be a painting of a sunflower field was now replaced with a blown-up poster of his mother's face. The first time Ichigo saw it, which was three days after he learnt to stop looking for his mother by the river side, he had frowned in disapproval of such an unorthodox display. His father must have seen his frown, for he ambled over, pulled him into a headlock and demanded that he had better liked it. Ichigo sort of understood. To his father, to his sisters, to him, his mother was larger than life. She was a blazing source of sunshine that did not belonged to a little altar, framed in a tiny wooden border, in the company of nothing more than a few incenses. So Ichigo may criticize his father's sense of respect to the dead, but he would never ask him to remove the poster.

There were nights when Ichigo woke from his recurring nightmares of blood, rain and death. He would crawl out of bed and silently pad past his father's room, in which through the partially opened door, he could see Yuzu and Karin huddled on the bed with their father. Each of his arms would be wrapped tightly around the two girls, as they clutched onto him in their sleep. And on such sleepless nights, Ichigo would fight the urge to join his sisters in that bed that used to belong to two. Instead, he would choose to sit in the living room with his knees drawn up to his chest, rocking back and forth on the couch, staring at the unobstructed view of his mother's poster on the dining room's wall. The first time his father had came down and found him sitting alone in the darkness, he had ruffled his hair, poured him a glass of milk and told him to go back to sleep after he was finished with his drink. The second time his father had came down and found him, he had sat down beside him and pulled his trembling son into his arms, allowing him to cry silently in his warm embrace. There was no third time though. For Ichigo stopped going downstairs. He would feign sleep when his father entered his room night after night, tucking him in carefully and planting a kiss lightly on his forehead before leaving the room quietly.

Ichigo sometimes think that his father probably knew that he was pretending. But perhaps neither of them wished to spoil each other's carefully scripted act, for they were afraid of the consequences that would follow, so neither of them would breathe a word about it.

But even if Ichigo was only nine going on ten, he clearly saw that for his father, the pretense did not just end there.

His father would smile and crack jokes. He would piggy-back Yuzu and Karin from the living room to their bedrooms to coax them to go to bed. He would cook the children's favorite dishes and eat heartily at the table. He would play the role of the perfect father, dedicating all his time to his children. But when nobody was watching, his father would sit for hours with a book in his hand and never turn a page. He would stand at the door and stare into space, seemingly to have forgotten why he had entered the room in the first place. He would sit at the steps of the house late at night, smoking one cigarette after another, till all that was left was a scrunched up empty packet and a tray full of ashes.

His father was bereft but he had never cried. Ichigo grew afraid of this quiet, tearless face that seemed to be miles away. But he grew even more afraid of the lively, jovial face that belonged to a father who had gone away and left him with a stranger who only looked and acted like his father but was not him.

His father was empty.

Four weeks after his mother's death, was his birthday. Exactly twenty-eight days; Ichigo had been counting the days away, wondering if time could really heal all wounds. His father had gotten him an excessively large chocolate cake and prepared a feast. Karin and Yuzu had combined their efforts to draw him a card filled with hearts and stars, colored in all shades of pink, purple, orange and yellow. They sang him a birthday song at the top of their voices and the song ended up a little off-tune, but Ichigo had not minded at all.

"Make a wish! Make a wish Onii-chan!" Yuzu hopped about the room, waving her hands excitedly.

Ichigo wondered what wish to make then. He did not believe in making wishes, for he was certain the one thing that he most wanted to wish for would never be granted. He closed his eyes and leaned forward like he was making a wish, though running through his mind were just images of the day that he wished to forget. He carefully measured the amount of time he should take before he blew out the candles, knowing that if he was too fast, it would be obvious he was undermining the importance of this celebration. He opened his eyes finally like he was done, and he moved away from the uncomfortable heat of the flame, which was an invasive sense of expanding air that was warm and prickly to the nose.

"Make sure you blow out your candles all at one go! Or else your wish won't come true!" His father roared in his loud boisterous way.

Yuzu tugged at the hem of Ichigo's shirt, insisting that he told her what wish he made. But his father bent down and placed his hand on her head, telling her that if Onii-chan told her what he wished for, the wish would not come true. Yuzu had pouted and scrambled to Karin's side, and said that it was unfair that wishes had to be secrets because she told everyone everything.

Before Ichigo got around to cutting the cake, his father gave him his present. "Open it."

Obediently, he tore open the wrapping and unveiled the leather-bound book that he had much coveted since he had set eyes on it. It was William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in its original old English version. When he had asked for the book several months ago, his father had laughed and insisted that Ichigo would not understand it even if he attempted to read it, so he had not bought it for him. This of course, would be entirely true, but Ichigo had wanted it because it was one of his mother's favorite stories and he wanted her to read it to him.

"Like it, Son? You said you wanted it."

Ichigo felt the urge to cry, but he did not. Instead, he held the book against his chest tightly, his eyes searching for the father that he knew before. He did not know what had made him do it then – perhaps it was the abrupt realization that he had already blown out his candles and it was perhaps too late to make a wish - but he suddenly reached out to grab his father's shirt and he said, "Daddy, please don't leave us."

His father looked confused and Ichigo tightened his tiny fist and pulled at his father's shirt even harder, with an effort that one would recognize as desperation. "Daddy, please come back. Don't leave us. Don't leave me."

And it was precisely at the end of that sentence when Ichigo witnessed a pivotal change, unwinding like the release of a spring that had been coiled up too tight for too long. It was at that end of the sentence, where his father's eyes shifted uncertainly, and the irises unfocused themselves and focused back, and the corner of the eyes tightened up. The process passed in such an infinitesimal fraction of a second, that if Ichigo was not searching for that change, he would have missed it completely. In fact, if his father's tears had not come, he would have believed that the moment that had just passed was just part of the hallucinatory clarity of the mind of a child who was frantically looking for hope.

Ichigo noticed that his father must not have realized that tears were streaking down his face, for he looked surprised when Ichigo wiped them awkwardly away from his father's face with the heel of his small hand. Then his face crumpled as he began to sob and he buried his face into the nook of Ichigo's neck. Ichigo then dropped the book and put his small arms around his father's large frame. It was terrifying, watching a fully grown man falling so completely apart, weeping like a lost little boy who had just found his family. But bravely and firmly, Ichigo held onto his father, learning that there was no Man on earth who was as infallible as they appeared to be.

Yuzu and Karin ran over anxiously to ask what was wrong, but neither Ichigo nor his father could find the voice to speak. Ichigo was certain that crying was strangely contagious, for not only his father and him, but his sisters too burst into tears. The four of them simply hugged each other wailing like lunatics for a long time, though in the end, the reason behind the tears would probably remain too difficult to be put into words.

That night, they set out five plates, five cups, five forks and five slices of cake on the table. And when the celebration was over, the four of them slept together in that double bed, curled up securely beside their father's warmth, their father who had finally returned home to them, safe and sound.

And now, for a ten-year-old, Ichigo knew a lot more things. He already knew that no one person's death could make the world stop spinning. But the thing was, the world _did_ stop spinning when his mother had died. His world had stopped spinning. And so had his father's. But he also knew that things would surely start moving again, and all that was needed, was for someone to reach out and help you.

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**- YL -**

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**Note: **Thank you for reading. I truly hope you liked it.


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